


The Dessert

by Telanu



Series: Grace and Frankie: The Remix [2]
Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Oral Sex, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:50:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11180298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telanu/pseuds/Telanu
Summary: An outtake from my picture-based AU remix of the TV series "Grace and Frankie," in which Grace and Frankie leave their husbands for each other instead of the other way around. This is a story fleshing out (heh, get it) one of the off-screen sex scenes alluded to in the remix. In other words: porn!





	The Dessert

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think it's strictly necessary to have read the rest of the remix to understand the story, just so long as you know the basic premise as laid out in the summary. That said, wouldn't it be more fun to have the full context?
> 
> Thanks to Luthien for the beta!

**Now:**

 

**Then:**

Frankie hates herself. She hates herself, and her feelings, and her weakness, and this entire fucking situation.

 The only thing she doesn’t hate is Grace.

How can she? Sure, Grace looked first, but only after Frankie dared her to, and she didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It’s not her fault that Frankie pushed the issue, and then pushed them into each other’s arms.

And Grace doesn’t rejoice in this any more than Frankie does. She hates herself, too. Frankie’s pretty sure.

But while Frankie hates herself for betraying her loved ones, along with her formerly copacetic position in the Universe, Grace hates herself for betraying...well, herself. There’s nobody else to betray, is there? It’s not like she and Robert have some big, loving commitment like Frankie and Sol do. One of the reasons Grace can sneak around is that Robert never cares where she is.

So Frankie also hates Robert.

Not Grace, though. Never Grace. Thirty years of all that were wiped away with one hot look in a law office, followed by a kiss that could have been discovered by their husbands any moment but took the top of Frankie’s head right off. And how could Frankie hate anybody who made that tiny, whimpering noise Grace had made when they pulled apart for air?

Now they try not to look at each other across the table in Grace’s big, horrible house while their families meet for dinner.

This isn’t new. Grace and Frankie have always avoided eye contact and, whenever possible, everything else. Four months in (four months, this thing has dragged out into _months_ ), and Frankie doesn’t think anybody has any idea. Just seems like the same old, same old.

What’s new is the hazy, drugged look that appears in Grace’s eyes any time they do happen to glance at each other, the way her hard mouth gets soft. When she looks at Frankie, she goes from Stepford to Nympho in 0.004 seconds, and here’s the thing…

She doesn’t know how to handle it. Frankie has become fully aware of that. Grace has gone sixty-eight years without being controlled by her hormones. She never had those teenage times when her body was one long nerve of blistering heat, because she thought she was only supposed to look at boys--she’s only admitted to the first, but Frankie’s long since guessed at the second. Grace had adequate encounters when sometimes she came and mostly she didn’t, and she worked all the time to excel at school and life and a business where she could make women beautiful.

So Grace Hanson has zero experience in not letting her hands shake with lust, in thinking gross thoughts so that beads of sweat don’t appear on her forehead or a flush doesn’t sweep up her throat. She can hide every other feeling, and does, but this thing is swamping her, and right now she looks like she’s only moments from drowning. From choking on her own breath.

Or maybe from having an orgasm right there in her chair.

“Are you feeling all right, Grace?” Sol asks from where he sits at Frankie’s left, glancing down the long table to Grace at the other end. She’s Robert’s opposite like this, as if they’re squaring off.

Everyone looks at Grace. Even Frankie has to when Sol asks a question like that. It would be worse not to. So she sees Grace raise her elegant head, eyebrows, and the corners of her mouth as she gives Sol a _whatever-do-you-mean_ look.

The woman might not know how to hide desire, but she sure knows how to deflect any suggestion that she might not be 100,000 percent composed.

“Yes, of course,” Grace says. She sounds hoarse. Frankie starts to _ache_ down below.

“You look a little flushed,” says Sol, who doesn’t know when to quit. He leans forward in concern while Robert gives his wife a bland look and all four kids plus Mitch (for once) glance back and forth between all four parents. “And you haven’t eaten much.”

“Yeah, well, some things are a universal constant,” Frankie says automatically. Grace glances at her, and for one half-second looks like she might burst into tears. Then it’s gone.

Frankie stands up even though her knees don’t feel ready for it. “Anybody want some coffee?”

“Ooh, me,” Mallory says. “Let me help you.”

“Me too,” Mitch adds, as agreeable as he’s ever been now that his children are with a babysitter.

Grace stands up too. Not looking at Frankie. “Nobody help. You’re our guests. I’ve got it.”

“Oops, too slow,” Frankie says, already heading to the kitchen, Grace close behind her. Nobody laughs, but Frankie knows everyone will be exchanging amused glances. The moms, clashing again.

The kitchen and dining room are directly connected by a corridor. There’s no real place to hide, but at least the coffeemaker is tucked in a corner that’s just out of sight.

The moment Grace appears, Frankie pulls her into that corner, and Grace’s mouth goes slack so Frankie can kiss it. Grace’s hands go in her hair. Frankie’s arms go around her waist. Their families are less than twenty feet away.

This kiss should go on forever, but Frankie keeps it short enough that they won’t gasp for air when they part. That’d be too loud. They were almost caught like that once.

But it was still long enough to make Grace shake with the sex version of the DTs, and she whispers, “Oh God.” Combs her hands through Frankie’s hair and tucks her face into the side of Frankie’s neck. “Oh God.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Slow down,” Frankie hisses, which might send kind of a mixed signal when she’s cupping Grace’s ass and fighting not to grind on her thigh. “Make coffee.”

“I can’t do this.” Grace’s head falls back and thunks against the wall. She closes her eyes. She gulps. “I can’t do coffee, I can’t do anything because you’re…”

“You can do coffee, honey.” Frankie’s trying not to pant, trying not to nuzzle beneath Grace’s ear at the spot that makes her moan. “Make the coffee. Then…”

“Then _what?”_

Frankie has no idea. “I’ve got you,” she manages. She puts her palm on Grace’s back. Grace has tried to armor herself with a black v-neck sweater in fine cashmere. It’s so soft against Frankie’s hand, promising more from the skin beneath. “C’mon, you know you’ve gotta do it. My coffee always tastes like shit.”

And she rubs Grace’s back up and down while Grace makes the decaf, never losing contact, keeping an ear out while conversation continues to flow from the dining room. The touch seems to soothe Grace, reminds her that Frankie’s here, needing this as much as she does.

 _(I’d really like to see you prove it._ How many times has Frankie wished she could go back in time and kick herself for saying that?)

Grace’s highlighted hair has slid away from the nape of her neck. Frankie can see the top ridge of her spine, one of her most sensitive places. Perfectly pointed, rising up beneath soft skin. Oh, damn it.

“Hold still, baby,” she whispers. “And shh.”

Grace freezes. She braces herself against the counter, trembling while she waits for whatever Frankie’s about to do.

Doesn’t matter what it is. She’ll take it. She wants it that bad.

Frankie kisses the nape of her neck, scrapes her teeth over the ridge, flicks it with her tongue. Tastes salt.

Looks down to see that Grace’s knuckles have gone absolutely white and her knees are shaking.

Damn it, again. “I’m sorry,” Frankie says, even though apologizing for reflex reactions is pointless. You’re supposed to embrace those as part of your truth.

“I can’t go back in there.” Grace’s voice is barely audible, barely understandable, thick as syrup. “They’re going to know.”

"Nobody’s going to know.”

“Sol saw!” Grace’s voice nearly rises out of a whisper, and Frankie feels the lash of her husband’s name across her cheek. “What’s wrong with me?”

Good question. What the fuck is wrong with Grace Hanson? Frankie’s been asking that for thirty years. And she always had this mean, shitty little voice inside her that said, _Nothing a good screw wouldn’t fix_.

Turns out she was right.

“I got this,” she says, rubs Grace’s back, and heads into the dining room. “Who wants boozy coffee?”

Every single hand goes up. “Great,” Frankie says, returns to the kitchen, and judges the timing.  

“Sol’s right,” she whispers in Grace’s ear. When the hell did she get good at this? Since when is she the competent one while Grace is out to lunch, incapable of fending for herself? “You’re not feeling well. You’re going to say you need a Tylenol or something after we hand out the cake and coffee, and then you go up to your room.”

Grace gives her a wild look. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m gonna be vegan this week, you _murderer.”_

Grace claps her hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh. It seems to snap her out of her daze, which is pretty ironic, since the flash of delight in her eyes puts all of Frankie’s brain cells on the fritz.

_It’s just sex, you love Sol, this is a huge mistake, you love Sol, it’s just sex, just another drug._

_I should talk to Coyote._

She’s not gonna do that. “Um,” she says. “You cut. I’ll pour.”

Within minutes, their family is cooing over cake and Irish coffee while Grace is excusing herself “for just a moment,” and Sol is “I knew something was wrong”-ing, and Frankie is saying, “I’m going to do a purification ritual for those sweet little eggs cut down before their prime.”

What seems like ten years later, Frankie has her clogs in her hands and fuzzy socks still on her feet so she can tiptoe as quietly as possible up the hardwood stairs to Grace’s room.

Grace’s room is something else Frankie hates, and she thinks Grace just might hate it too. But they’ve met here a couple of times when Robert and Sol go out of town--law conferences, fishing trips, even a full day of golfing or tennis that will keep them away for hours.

They could meet at Frankie’s house too, of course. Frankie’s neighbors are way less likely to notice Grace’s car making its way up the long driveway shrouded by trees.

But Frankie and Sol live in that house, they love in that house, they share a bed there, and Frankie just can’t do it. Grace doesn’t want to go there either; she feels horribly out of place, a slim column of sophistication and surface in the middle of all the warmth and clutter.

That’s why they tend to skedaddle to the beach house whenever possible, where the sound of the ocean makes it easy for Frankie to imagine she’s on a foreign shore (maybe even an alien planet), and where the breeze can cool their sweating skin when they open the windows afterward.

Grace is waiting in her bedroom with the gray wallpaper, white trim, and cream carpet. The room has been sucked clean of color. In it, she looks pale and lost. Her house is a goddamn vampire.

Frankie locks the door, like that’s supposed to do any good.

Instead of rushing forward into an embrace, Grace wrings her hands, looking back and forth between Frankie and the king-sized bed buried beneath a lavender-gray duvet and ornamental pillows. She bites her bottom lip. Maybe she’s changed her mind. Have the past few minutes brought her to her senses?

Of course, that’d be a good thing, right? If Grace can be sensible, maybe Frankie can too, for once, and yet all she can think about is how to get Grace back in the mood and--

“How do you want me?” Grace husks.

_Fuck._

This has to be fast, pants-down-around-the-knees fast, and yet Frankie hears herself say, “Bed. On your back.”

Grace obeys, and when Frankie crawls on top of her, she holds out her arms with an anxious little whine. By the time their bodies touch, the reasons they shouldn’t be doing this don’t matter any more.

Kissing Grace Hanson is paradise, and if you’d told Frankie that four and a half months ago, she’d have said you needed a purification ritual too. She would have said Grace’s mouth held only acid and razor blades. Who’d have thought she keeps a piece of heaven in the tip of her tongue?

They don’t really have time for kisses. They don’t have time for anything. But they sink into it anyway, Grace going limp and feeble with desire while Frankie’s muscles tense, tighten like she’s growing denser and heavier from the inside out, the better to pin Grace down so she can never leave. They kiss and kiss until Frankie finally opens her eyes and turns her head (Grace gasps when they part, she kisses Frankie’s ear), and sees the jar of yam lube sitting on the mattress near one of the pillows.

That’s something else they don’t have time for. Frankie seizes one of Grace’s pillows with trembling hands while Grace unbuckles her own belt and unzips her pants. She lifts her skinny hips to shimmy her wool slacks down to her knees, and after a visible moment of hesitation, kicks off her shoes and yanks off the slacks entirely.

 _No time,_ Frankie thinks, _no time,_ but she says nothing. She pulls Grace’s fancy silk underwear down too, until it’s dangling off one of Grace’s ankles while Grace shoves the pillow beneath her hips. Then she closes her eyes, bites her bottom lip as if she’s bracing to have blood drawn, and spreads her legs. Frankie looks between them while her peripheral vision gets a little blurry.

Grace waxes. Frankie doesn’t. She has, from sheer courtesy, started to trim what little is left, even though Grace never complains. She even seems to like it. Frankie can’t deny, though, that Grace baring all makes things simpler at moments like this.

Thank God the bed is so big. Frankie lies down on her stomach, between Grace’s thighs. She parts Grace’s other lips, leans in, and kisses those too.

Grace grabs her hair, and from above Frankie comes that whimpering noise again.

Frankie’s ears are buzzing, and her second-to-last thought is that being an older woman kinda blows, because Grace is so turned on she’s about to die, but she’s not wet enough. And there’s the lube, but...no time, right? No time to tease the G.

There’s always the C. It’s pink and swollen without a single touch, already begging for attention. And people might call Frankie “flighty,” but she’s pretty damn good at paying attention to stuff that actually interests her.

 _I’m interested_ , is her last thought as she begins to lick circles around the little fold of flesh. Teasing it in the way that always drives Grace crazy when she’s this aroused. Grace’s hips arch forward and she makes the little _ohhh_ sound that wants to be a moan.

Moments like this, Frankie doesn’t care about being quiet. Let them be loud. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing like ice queen Grace Hanson melting for her and only her, needing this so much.

_Just another drug._

Grace’s hands tremble in Frankie’s hair. “I want you,” she chokes.

She can never say that outside of moments like this, not _ever,_ but when they’re together she can’t stop saying it. And though they don’t have time for this, Frankie asks, “How bad?”

“Please.” Grace arches her hips. “Oh, please...”

Frankie licks her clit and blows gently on it. Grace nearly rips out a whole hank of her hair, and for revenge Frankie repeats, “I said _how bad?”_

“I--I--” Grace spreads her legs wider and probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it. “Oh God--”

“What have you been thinking about all night?”

“You! This! I’ve been--” Glancing up, Frankie sees that Grace’s face is flushed red now, and her eyes are squeezed shut. “And all d-day--I want you--” She slowly shakes her head back and forth against the bed, as if in denial. And yet she says, “I’ll do anything.”

When she’s this worked up, sometimes she says stuff like that. _I’ll do anything. Tell me and I’ll do it. Whatever you want._ Whatever it takes to keep this going, Grace will do, or so she claims.

So far, it’s true. She’s held perfectly still while getting felt up beneath a tablecloth, ripped the sleeve of her silk blazer with her teeth trying to stay quiet in a restroom, sat on the couch next to Robert while Frankie talked dirty to her over the phone--all the shit Frankie can’t believe she’s doing and that should have made Grace call a halt to this long ago. Grace has to be the one to end this because Frankie can’t, and so far she takes it all, she _loves_ it all.

She’s done everything. Which makes it oddly easy for Frankie to say tonight, “You don’t have to do anything.”

She laps at Grace’s clit again, then closes her lips around it.

Grace gasps, goes rigid, and Frankie pauses for a second, letting the little nub rest against her tongue. The first time they’d ever done this, Grace had stopped breathing, and for a second Frankie had believed she’d killed her lover of a day and a half.

It ended up only being a little death. Grace had come just from that, wailing her release in Frankie’s studio while their husbands talked in the main house over their second cups of coffee. Come from the warmth of another woman’s mouth and nothing else, come until she could barely talk afterward while Frankie took the opportunity to look at her undone.

Now Grace is fighting it, even though they’re pressed for time. Her thighs shake and her grip tightens in Frankie’s hair. Frankie knows what she’s doing. She’s telling herself, _No, not yet, don’t waste it--_

Frankie begins to suck, so gently.

Grace’s breath stops again. Then it shudders out of her, and she begins to rock her hips in time, the only noise in the room the faintest creak of the mattress beneath them.

Well, that and the sigh that just came out of Frankie’s mouth without her permission. For thirty years, Grace has been bitter, sour, always left a bad taste in Frankie’s mouth whenever they parted. Now she’s the sweetest thing.

“Frankie,” Grace whispers. “Oh, Frankie.”

It was quiet, quiet enough that Frankie might have made it up inside her head (her hearing’s not the best), but screw it. They do have time. They have just enough time if Frankie’s willing to forego her turn and spend the time on Grace she’d normally get herself.

Grace is sweet, but she could taste even sweeter, and before Frankie can stop herself, she raises her head and gasps, “Open the jar, quick.”

She bends back down to her work, but less urgently, just so Grace can actually concentrate enough to open a jar. The sound of the lid unscrewing is an impossible turn-on. Frankie’s sixty-fucking-eight, they both are, how is this even happening to her brain?

Maybe she was rude to a bodhisattva in her previous life.

In a second, Grace manages, “H-here,” and Frankie takes the jar. She inhales the comforting scent of yams. The first time Frankie tossed aside Grace’s proffered tube of K-Y had led to a discussion that had totally derailed the sex but somehow been fulfilling--a moment when she and Grace had talked instead of fucked, something that pushed them even farther down a road Frankie never meant to travel.

And now look at them. Frankie swirls her fingertip in the lube while she kisses Grace’s thigh, then rubs the pads of her thumb and fingers together to warm it up.  

Frankie’s an artist. She paints. Her fingers stroke over delicate, tender surfaces, daubing them while Grace groans in relief. Her hands slide into Frankie’s hair again, not to pull or guide, but to rest there. To ground herself. When Frankie glances up the length of her torso, she surprises a little smile on Grace’s face, something like a look of peace now that she’s getting what she wants.

The hell is that? How can Grace be happy right now? How can the idea of _making_ Grace happy cause a warm, bright ache in Frankie’s chest that has no place in this place they shouldn’t be?

Maybe that’s why she does something unwise. She’s never had what you’d call the greatest impulse control.

She slicks her fingers again and slides one of them deeply inside Grace, lubing her inside as well as out. Grace goes still.

Then, when Frankie curls her finger up, finds the rougher, spongy patch, and presses against it, Grace gasps, “Wait.”

Frankie begins to rub firmly and bends down to lick Grace’s clit again.

“Oh God!” Grace’s hands tighten in her hair. “Slow down--or--”

 _Slow down or I’ll come._ And yet her hands are pulling Frankie closer. Her hips are rising and falling in a helpless rhythm as Frankie licks and presses in the move that makes her come harder, come for longer, than anything else they’ve tried.

And come louder.

“I’ll scream!” Grace’s voice cracks mid-whisper. She’s practically grinding on Frankie’s face even as she begs, “Oh _God!_ ”

Dammit, but she’s right, she’s right. Frankie groans, raises her mouth, and kisses Grace’s belly button. She loves that fucking little thing, loves Grace’s nipples too, loves her collarbone. Loves--

“What the hell are you doing?” Grace gasps. “Frankie, don’t stop!”

“You can’t scream,” Frankie pants, her ears buzzing as she tries to work out her next move. Grace is so close. Anything would do. Maybe if--

“I won’t!” Grace’s head falls back and she looks up at the ceiling. Her chest heaves. Frankie would kill to get at her bare breasts, have them in her hands and mouth while Grace pleads for more. “I promise...I…”

Fuck it. Fuck it all. Grace is aching, she’s been aching all day, and if she’ll do anything to keep this going, then the least Frankie can do is make her feel so good she never regrets it. She can make Grace come so hard today’s desperation only seems like a fever dream.

Yeah. Frankie can do that. “So long as you promise,” she says.

She wastes no more time. She slides her finger out and then pushes two back in, finding that rough spot again, rubbing harder, rubbing faster. Grace’s whole body practically seizes up, her back arching, her hips undulating. Then Frankie begins sucking her clit again, just _barely_ off-rhythm, raising her higher and higher but not letting her peak.

She’s never been the commanding type, more like the sharing-and-communion type, but Grace’s body does whatever Frankie tells it to, for as long as she tells it to, and Frankie can’t think of anybody on Gaia’s surface who could resist that power.

“Frankie…” The whisper rises into a higher pitch even as Grace slips deeper into delirium. Frankie knows she’s not thinking now, she’s not anything but desperate to come, as drunk on need as she’s ever been on anything else. “Oh no--I can’t help it--”

Holy fuck, Grace tastes good. She smells good. She feels good. She even sounds good, as her breath becomes a series of sobs. All of a sudden, Frankie knows exactly what she means when she says _I’ll do anything_. There is literally nothing Frankie will not do in this life, or the next one for that matter, to make her--

Rhythm. Frankie begins to lick, suck, stroke, kiss, all of it in time. Faster, harder, while Grace tosses her head back and forth, gasping _please_ and _yes_ and _I want you I want you_ and finally--

_"Oh my Go--”_

Grace claps both hands over her mouth just in time to muffle the scream.

Her thighs quake. She clenches around Frankie’s fingers, pulses against Frankie’s tongue. Frankie keeps going. A couple of times, she’s gotten Grace there more than once, and that’s when Grace’s pleas and prayers turn into something else.

Grace moans a muffled _holy shit_ into her palms, and then digs her hands into Frankie’s hair again. Too out of breath to scream, she pants, “Fuck me. Fuck me. Frankie, goddamn it...damn it…” Then her hips roll, a long and luxuriant stretch as she gasps, “Oh, _fuck!_ ”

One final quiver against Frankie’s tongue, one last sob for air, and then it’s over. Frankie keeps going anyway, gentling her touch until Grace starts wriggling backward. Now the little whimpers mean _enough, enough._ Frankie takes a deep breath, slides her fingers out, and rests her head against Grace’s thigh for a second.  

Grace relaxes all over, sags back into the mattress, and sighs. Moments later, the sigh turns into a hum. She keeps her eyes shut.

Frankie can’t stop looking at Grace: her pale, patrician cheekbones flushed, her false eyelashes fluttering, her pulse beating wildly beneath a gold necklace. Maybe this is what keeps Frankie coming back for more--not just the kisses and touches and whispered filth, but the afterglow. Grace is buck naked from the waist down and rumpled everywhere else. Her hair’s a mess. Frankie wrecked her, and she’s never looked so good.

Ordinarily, Frankie would be squirming right now, dying to get her turn to fall apart beneath Grace’s touch. More urgent than she’s been with Sol since...maybe ever. Tonight, although her nipples are tight and her cunt’s screaming for its due, she can’t let it happen.

Not because of the timing. It’s because that revelation she had a few seconds ago still holds true: in moments like this, there’s nothing she won’t do to make Grace Hanson happy.

What did she _do_ to that bodhisattva? Run over his cat? Do bodhisattvas have cats?

Grace’s eyes open, blue and glazed. Frankie holds her breath. _Say it was good. Say I made you happy, that it’s worth all of this._

“Jesus Christ.” Grace gulps. “Frankie, that was…” She draws a shaking hand over her forehead and closes her eyes. Her lipstick-smeared mouth widens in a smile. “God, I needed that.”

Close enough. Frankie exhales in a rush. When normally she might have taunted _I could tell_ , she says, “So you’re, uh, good now?”

Grace’s woozy smile sharpens. “Oh, yeah. How about you?”

Her heart still hammering, Frankie sits up and moves away from Grace, whose pencilled eyebrows draw together in sudden confusion. “I’m okay too.”

“What?” For a moment, Grace looks so vulnerable she’s like a different person. Frankie already knows what she’s thinking: _Was this a pity fuck?_  “Don’t you want--”

God and Goddess, _yes._ But Frankie still has to say, “No time.” She glances back at the floor. During one of her orgasms, Grace appears to have kicked her underwear halfway across the room.

“I don’t care.”

Frankie’s eyes widen, and she whips her head back around to stare at Grace, who could not possibly have said that. Murmured it, really, almost too low to hear. She’s looking at Frankie’s pelvis like she can see through the long “Free Willie” tee to what she wants beneath. Her lips part softly.

And she places a hand on Frankie’s thigh. Her touch burns through the tee and the paisley leggings beneath. She licks her lips.

For a second, Frankie doesn’t care either. She loves giving cunnilingus, but Grace eats pussy like it’s her last hope of salvation, so damn talented at it that it’s hard to believe Frankie’s the only one. And Frankie’s gonna walk away from that tonight?

More like stagger. She shoves Grace’s hand away. “I said no.”

“What?” Grace blinks, and then her eyes finally seem to focus. “But you didn’t even get to…” She trails off. Her cheeks go pink again. Now that Frankie’s tongue is off her clit, she’s back to being the woman who’s too uptight to say _come._

“I’ve had enough.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Frankie realizes how they might have--must have--sounded to Grace, whose flush dies instantly. She sits up, pressing her thighs together, and looks around the room, at everything but Frankie.

Panic grabs at Frankie’s throat. She hadn’t meant it like that. This time yesterday, she might have been able to explain it without worrying she would explode. Now, the chorus of _you done fucked up_ won’t pipe down in her head.

“I, uh,” she says.

“This was your idea,” Grace hisses. She looks at her panties on the floor but stays frozen on the bed. Even though Frankie’s just rubbed her face all over her cunt, now she’s too self-conscious to get up and show herself. One hand even hovers over the junction of her thighs.

Frankie almost turns around to give her some privacy, but what the hell would that say? Instead, she retrieves Grace’s panties for her, and can’t resist holding them up for closer scrutiny. Lavender silk, scalloped and patched with cream-colored lace.

“Cute,” she says in the breezy voice of someone who’s not stitching up a wound of her own making. “Who’s Carine Gilson?”

“Give me those.” Grace swipes at the air, looking no less mortified.

“Wow, they’re nice. Maybe I’ll get some if they come in a bigger size than ten below zero.” This could work. If Grace loves anything more than getting fucked, it’s being outraged. Frankie takes one unsteady step out onto the tightrope. “Where’d you get ‘em, Macy’s? I think the semi-annual underwear sale is coming up.”

Grace’s shattered expression fades as her eyes widen. She leans forward, indignation pulling on her like gravity. “That lingerie is handmade!" Her eyes dart from side to side as she looks for a suitably scorching followup, and she adds, “In _Brussels!_ ”

The _you peasant_ goes unspoken. Frankie says, “Imported, huh?” Then, while Grace splutters at her, she holds the panties up to her nose and takes a sniff of the silk.

She’d meant to lighten the mood, but the moment she catches the remnants of Grace’s arousal, the ache returns. Jesus. She can still taste it on her lips, smell it in her nostrils.

She manages to say, “Smells pretty domestic to me,” before she tosses them in a gaping Grace’s direction. They land in her lap. “You got anything else by Terry Gilliam?”

“Carine…” Grace’s voice peters out as she looks into Frankie’s eyes.

That’s probably a yes. Belgian underwear is bound to be stupid expensive, so Grace must have at least ten pairs. Especially now that she has someone to show them off to.

Now that she has someone.

Frankie takes a deep breath. Almost there. She returns to stand by the bed and runs her fingers through Grace’s disheveled hair. “When we meet at the beach house on Sunday afternoon,” she says, “why don’t you show me?”

Grace gulps. The awful tension goes out of her, finally; the belief that she is unwanted no longer holds her body in its iron grip.

 _Now_ they’re there. Frankie refuses to let her fingers tremble with relief as she strokes through Grace’s hair. Grace’s eyes fall shut, and the ache between Frankie’s thighs is joined by an even less convenient ache in her heart. How hungry has Grace been for a tender touch if she reacts so strongly to Frankie’s?

And what the hell is wrong with Robert, anyway? How has he not spent the last thirty-seven years fucking his wife nonstop?

Grace keeps her eyes shut while Frankie pets her. “Sunday afternoon?” she whispers. Frankie can see her running through her mental calendar, canceling plans.

“Yeah.” It ought to work. Sunday afternoons are Frankie’s time, when she takes off for parts unknown and Sol never questions her, because why would he? Meanwhile, he sits on the couch and reads.

Sunday mornings are for leisurely cups of mate with him while she draws funny faces in the Jumble circles and he does the crossword puzzle in glitter purple ink because “it defies heteronormativity.”

So does this. Frankie can’t think about that for more than a few seconds while Grace is sitting in front of her, half-naked and weak with a need that goes far beyond sex. Was this what torture was like in the Middle Ages, being drawn and quartered, pulled into pieces from different directions?

Grace opens her eyes. “It’s a deal.” Then she smiles a little bit.

This can’t be Frankie’s fault. She must be under a spell or curse. Magic is real, no matter what Grace says, which must be why she bends down for a kiss instead of beating a prudent retreat.

“I can taste myself on you,” Grace whispers when they part. Frankie fights not to whimper as her body reminds her she didn’t get off. More practically, Grace adds, “Don’t forget to wash your face.”

So Sol won’t also taste Grace on Frankie’s lips. What’s more horrifying--the surge of guilt or the jealousy? Nobody else should be tasting Grace, and Frankie’s only comfort is that she’s pretty sure nobody is.

_I’m sorry, Mr. Bodhisattva. It won’t happen again._

Then Grace blinks and looks at her watch. Her eyes widen. “Oh, no. When did we leave?”

However long it’s been, it’s been too long. Even though Frankie’s not taking her turn, they shouldn’t have spent this much time up here. And they can’t go downstairs right now--at least, Grace sure as hell can’t, not when she’s still got “Frankie Bergstein’s Secret Love Slave” written all over her face.

“I think your headache’s gotten worse,” Frankie says as she makes her unsteady way toward Grace’s ensuite bathroom. Splashes of cold water get rid of the evidence and wake her up, but then she wipes her face with the same towel Grace uses every night, and she falls back into the dream. “Uh. I’ll make your apologies.”

“How the hell are you going to do that?” Grace has her underwear back on, and now she’s sliding one leg into her slacks. Then she frowns and holds up her finger. “Wait. You finished your ritual and the goddess--or whoever--told you to open your heart and bring me some kind of godawful herbal remedy.” She purses her lips. “They’ll think you meant a joint, of course, but whatever. Then you did a chant until I snapped at you to leave, like the ingrate I am. That should cover us, don’t you think?”

Frankie stares at her. Grace’s lips twitch as she hikes her pants up. “Don’t think I haven’t been listening for thirty years.”

For thirty years, Frankie’s had this steadfast belief that Grace never listened to anything she said. Her knees wobble as she goes back down the stairs.

Everybody’s in the living room now, either on their second cup of coffee or a glass of brandy. When Frankie enters, she doesn’t even have time to gabble out the excuse before they look at her feet.

“Where are your shoes, Mom?” Coyote asks.

Oh God, oh God-- “I left them in Grace’s room!” Frankie blurts.

When their eyes all widen, the lie comes out like Grace is spotting her, feeding her lines from backstage. By the end of Frankie’s whopper, Brianna is snickering into her coffee, and Bud and Coyote are exchanging amused looks. Yeah, Frankie caring about Grace, isn’t that funny? Isn’t that whole story just so fucking funny?

Mallory rises from the couch with a grin. “I’ll get them for you. I think you better not poke the dragon twice.”

“Mallory,” Robert reproves. Brianna rolls her eyes.

For a second, Frankie considers telling them all, _Don’t worry about it. I’ll ask Grace to bring them to the beach house on Sunday afternoon when we meet to bang each other’s brains out._ What would happen if she did that?

“Thanks,” she says, instead of ruining her life.

Ten minutes later, when the clogs weigh her feet down and the Studebaker is pulling away from the curb, Sol pats Frankie’s knee. It doesn’t light up anything inside her. “I think what you did for Grace was very kind,” he says. “Very compassionate, even if she didn’t appreciate it.”

Grace surely did appreciate it, but that’s not the part Frankie’s stuck on. She’s not even stuck on the guilt she should be feeling when her husband approves of what she didn’t do. Because maybe, sort of, she did do it.

Something kind, something compassionate. Something that gave Grace a moment of fullness in her emotional void, a moment of connection with someone who...cares for her. At some point in the last four months, Frankie’s crossed the line from resentment into caring, and now she wants to make Grace Hanson happy.

Even if it’s just for a few hours at a time. Say, a secret Sunday afternoon when Grace will show off some overpriced lingerie, preening because Frankie won’t be able to help admiring her. She sucks up compliments like a Hoover, and she’s always been so damn pretty.

That’s what Frankie will tell her: _Aww. Aren’t you a pretty kitty?_ And Grace’s eyes will light up with joy even as she scoffs, _Kitty! Where’d that come from, Larry Flynt’s handbook?_ She won’t compliment Frankie back, but the freezer will have a fresh box of Fudge Pops, or a Diptyque candle will be sitting on the shrine in the meditation room. And Frankie will wonder how she missed her for thirty years, this woman, this hidden miracle--

“Yeah, well,” she says to Sol. “I felt like I needed to balance out for when I was rude to the cashier at the co-op last week.”

“Being nice to Grace when she had a headache? I think you made up for that time you threw a tomato at the manager when you realized it was genetically modified.”

“I don’t need to make up for that. My cause was righteous!”

Grace would mock that to hell and back, but Sol takes her seriously. He nods. “Maybe. We can unpack it later if you want.”

Sol, the perfect husband. Grace, who went from being a side piece to a lover tonight without having a clue.

_Bullshit, it’s not love, you love Sol, it’s just another drug…_

She’s so fucking fucked.

What is Grace doing? The euphoria will have faded now that Frankie’s not there to keep it going, now that the kids have left. She might come downstairs, claim she’s feeling better, and silently scrub pots and pans while Robert loads the dishwasher without a word. Then they’ll part for the night after a chaste peck on the cheek that even Frankie can’t get jealous about.

Meanwhile, when Frankie and Sol get home, he’ll watch the jungle episode of _Planet Earth_ while she creeps into the den with her own lube jar. She will rub the back of her teeth with her tongue and imagine Grace’s taste is still there. She’ll take off her cotton underwear that comes in a pack of five. If she gets wild enough, maybe she’ll call Grace during. Make her listen to it.

Assuming Grace picks up. She might turn to her own drug instead. She’s cut down on the drinking at these little family get-togethers. Now she stops herself at two glasses of wine because, as she confessed to Frankie, she’s afraid that her tongue will loosen after three, that she’ll let herself make eye contact and smile and drop double entendres.

Two glasses get her through the evening, and as soon as night falls and she’s tucked away in that bloodless bedroom, Grace grabs the Ketel One and makes up for lost time while her hands shake and she tells herself _None of this is a problem._

Frankie hates vodka, too.

She hates everything but Grace.

 

**FIN.**

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this dirty ditty and will consider letting me know. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also, sometimes I take requests, so if there's anything in the remix you'd like to know more about, feel free to comment here or hit me up with an ask on Tumblr. I'm @telanu.


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